Best distro for a slow atom netbook?

PiKe · 25 Mar 2013 at 22:20

I can't even remember the original OS it came with and I'm note sure where the CD installer is for it.

So, as things have probably moved on since then, what is recommended to run on it?

Boycie · 26 Mar 2013 at 01:53

I recently took in an Acer Aspire One with an Atom N270 and a stupidly slow Intel 16GB SSD and replaced the original OS with Lubuntu which ran fine.

korgtronix · 26 Mar 2013 at 08:48

Any Puppy distro? or maybe Bodhi. Both sets are quite nice for slow computers.

Hagar · 26 Mar 2013 at 09:58

Ubuntu netbook edition UNE

englishpremier · 26 Mar 2013 at 10:06

nkata said:
Ubuntu netbook edition UNE

Isn't that about 4 years old now?

I had great success with http://www.fuduntu.org/

Was quick enough on my old Dell Mini9 and looks pretty too.

PiKe · 26 Mar 2013 at 10:08

I put EasyPeasy on but as the screen is such a low res it feels pretty crammed, web browsing isn't very enjoyable.

manic111 · 26 Mar 2013 at 11:16

Crunchbang

hsp70 · 26 Mar 2013 at 17:57

I vote some form of puppy or crunchbang. Puppy will be quicker but crunchbang is beautiful and I love openbox.

Number_25 · 31 Mar 2013 at 07:10

Anything which uses Openbox or LXDE.

englishpremier · 31 Mar 2013 at 10:29

The thing is lightweight desktop environments are rubbish. At least the ones I've experienced.

They lack a lot of the usability features of gnome or KDE e.g. just right clicking to open as root, or to open a terminal in that particular folder.

They seem to lack polish and look like they're from the early 90s

PermaBanned · 31 Mar 2013 at 14:44

Is puppy really that quick any more? I kind of stopped following when they started using Ubuntu as a base. Just had a quick look, and crunchbang seems to have improved a lot recently. It maybe takes a bit of getting used to a more simple window manager, but you'll soon realise just how little you actually need all the extra features that come with gnome or KDE.

Number_25 · 1 Apr 2013 at 04:50

englishpremier said:
The thing is lightweight desktop environments are rubbish. At least the ones I've experienced.

They lack a lot of the usability features of gnome or KDE e.g. just right clicking to open as root, or to open a terminal in that particular folder.

They seem to lack polish and look like they're from the early 90s

But the benefit of low resources more than make up for it.

englishpremier · 1 Apr 2013 at 16:28

Is there anything that can be done to not make Crunchbang dialog boxes so pig ugly?

After taking a look around the distro, I quite like it, but I can't stand ugliness on my screen. While we're at the crunchbang menu needs more padding too.

manic111 · 2 Apr 2013 at 12:17

It's been a while since I used it, but I'm pretty sure that it's almost entirely editable. Can't help you further, but the Crunchbang forums were excellent when I used it.

olibb · 10 Apr 2013 at 08:52

I popped in a OCZ 60gb ssd into my netbook and just run XP. Its fine - and actually pretty quick! Very usable.

Number_25 · 11 Apr 2013 at 01:56

olibb said:
I popped in a OCZ 60gb ssd into my netbook and just run XP. Its fine - and actually pretty quick! Very usable.

XP over #!?

What has this world come to? :confused:

Woden · 11 Apr 2013 at 02:24

You can get a very lean gentoo install. Just install the base system xorg and openbox.
Takes a fair bit of learning and experiments but you can get it looking pretty slick.